VANCOUVER (CP) - A young man who endured eight terrifying days in the hands of kidnappers will be honeymooning this week while the trial of five men accused of abducting him enters its final phase.
Graham McMynn was married Saturday in the backyard of his wealthy parents' Vancouver home to high-school sweetheart Jacklin Tran, who had watched helplessly as kidnappers forced her boyfriend from their car and took him away April 4, 2006.
The abduction became a very public drama when his parents went on television to plead for the kidnappers to contact them.
Not since B.C. billionaire Jimmy Pattison's married daughter was grabbed just before Christmas 1990 had Vancouver seen such a high-profile kidnapping. Cynthia Kilburn was released after Pattison paid $200,000, but her youthful abductors were arrested quickly after taking a limousine on a spending spree.
No ransom demand for McMynn ever came but police capped a massive investigation April 12 by rescuing him from a suburban Surrey home and arresting a half-dozen people in a series of raids.
The Crown charged Jose Hernandez, Anh The Nguyen, Joshua Ponicappo, Sam Tuan Vu and Van Van Vu - aged 19 to 22 at the time - with kidnapping and unlawful confinement.
The trial began in February with riveting testimony from McMynn and Tran but dragged into summer as the Crown called almost 100 witnesses and tabled 1,100 exhibits, including DNA and wiretap evidence.
Finally, though, the B.C. Supreme Court case moves to final arguments this week after defence lawyers decided last week not to call any evidence.
Justice Arne Silverman, who is trying the case without a jury, is scheduled to give his verdict Oct. 17.
McMynn, 25, who now works as a software developer for Microsoft Corp. in the United States, did not want to be interviewed, but his father said the family is relieved the case will be over soon.
"I will only be happy if they get substantial convictions," Bob McMynn, who owns a bus-leasing company, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
He said Graham will probably never get completely past his ordeal, which saw him stripped, bound with plastic zip ties, blindfolded with duct tape, threatened with rape and dismemberment and feeling a pistol put to his head.
"It will always be somewhere in the back of his mind and I'm sure it takes part in some of his dreams," McMynn said.
"It was a terrible thing to happen that should never have happened."
Bob McMynn never attended the trial because he was a prospective witness, though neither side called him. He was surprised the defence decided not mount its own case.
However defence lawyers say it's a strategic move to give them the last word in dismantling what they see as a largely circumstantial case.
Normally, the Crown goes last in closing arguments but the order is reversed if the defence opts not to mount a case.
"If we call our case, we lose that last-kick-at-the-cat opportunity as well," said Chandra Corriveau, who represents Sam Tuan Vu.
"By not calling evidence, the Crown has to draw all the strings together and try and come up with a common thread and then we have an opportunity to hear the entirety of that argument before we make ours."
The onus is on the Crown to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not the accused to prove their innocence, Lawrence Myers, Van Van Vu's lawyer, pointed out.
"In general, there's a circumstantial body of evidence that the Crown is going to rely on and suggest that it is sufficient to prove his involvement," he says. "We say, simply put, that it is not.
"Obviously the man was kidnapped. It's a question of who did it or, if you will, what involvement they had."
McMynn testified he never saw his abductors but was able to distinguish their voices and accents. His fiancee described the two men who took McMynn from the couple's car at gunpoint as they headed to the University of British Columbia.
McMynn testified the man he believed was the kidnappers' leader told him they were to be paid $100,000 for grabbing him by others who were to negotiate a ransom with his family.
Court has heard a distraught Tran was able to memorize the licence number of the abductors' car, which led police to a rental agency. They caught a break when one of the alleged kidnap gang returned to pick up a cell-phone charger he'd left in a different vehicle.
The investigation would involve hundreds of officers conducting massive surveillance and monitoring phone taps that the Crown said revealed the kidnappers and McMynn's hiding place.
Prosecutor Richard Cairns said he'll take a couple of days for his final argument, with the defence expected to finish by Sept. 5.
Cairns said he wasn't surprised by the defence decision not to mount a case.
"I might have something to say after the verdict but not now," he said.
But Hernandez's lawyer, Lyndsey Smith, said despite 82 days of testimony, prosecutor Cairns simply hasn't established the necessary connections between the accused and the crime.
"Our job is going to be to say when you look at the evidence carefully, that actually isn't what occurred," she said.